


The Things We Won't Forget

by neildylandy



Category: Gundam 00
Genre: Alternate Scene, Angst, Angst and Humor, Canonical Character Death, Coping with Death, Drinking, Gen, Missing Scene, Mostly Canon Compliant, Trauma, takes place between s1 and s2 and then s2e1-s2e3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:33:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29966445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neildylandy/pseuds/neildylandy
Summary: More than a year before Celestial Being's official return, Setsuna F. Seiei and Lyle Dylandy meet for the first time.
Relationships: Lyle Dylandy & Setsuna F. Seiei
Comments: 8
Kudos: 5





	1. and the epitaph bears your name

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is based on the canonical gundam 00 sidestory manga Wanderer, which you can find translated [here](https://mangapark.net/manga/gundam-00-wanderer/i1612993)! it isn't required reading, but it is just nice to have anyway. some of the dialogue in this fic was adapted from that manga or just straight from the show itself.
> 
> enjoy!

He passes more than one person crying, as he wanders through the stones. 

They cry in a lot of different ways. Some of them are hunched over themselves, clutching their own bodies as if to keep themselves from blowing apart in the wind. Some of them are frozen solid, only set apart from the stone sentinels that watch this place by a few tears leaking from their eyes. Many of their faces are hidden entirely by the shoulders, the chests, the rain-soaked hair of the people close to them.

He tries not to look at them for too long. If he isn't able to cry alongside them, the least Setsuna can do is leave them to their own worlds of grief.

He barely knows where he's going. The names on more than half of these graves are written in English, and he can't even remember the last time he read an English word that wasn't the identification label on his Gundam. He barely managed to wrap his mind and his mouth around the syllables that led him to this place at all. And the ones that aren't in English...

 _Gaeilge._ Irish. Lockon Stratos never thought to teach him more than that. Setsuna never thought to ask.

The plastic-wrapped roses he bought make for an odd, crinkly weight in his hand. He's been holding them too loosely, focused on not crushing them, and now they're threatening to spill out onto the ground. He frowns, realigns them, and carefully tightens his grip.

When he looks up, he sees he's stopped at a tall stone cross. There's some English letters carved beneath it: three different first names, three identical last names, three pairs of years that all end with _2297._ He's familiar with that date by now. Dozens of deaths in this graveyard happened that very same year.

Something about the letters is familiar to him, too. His eyes scan over the blocky text, willing himself to remember how each letter would sound if he spoke them aloud.

_D...Y...L...dial? Deal? Dill—_

"Lockon," he breathes.

 _Dylandy._ It says _Dylandy._

He should've known that he wasn't going to find a grave with the name _Stratos._ The world doesn't know Lockon by that name. It would have known him as Neil Dylandy.

 _Is this...?_ He hesitates. _No. The world doesn't know that Neil Dylandy is dead, either. So who is it that's buried here?_

He reads the letters again and again, until he's forced them into the shapes of names. _Owen, Lyndsay, Amy._ The same year of death, repeated three times. _2297, 2297, 2297._ They all died at the same time. Simultaneous. Sudden.

 _The sudden deaths of two parents and a sister,_ he realizes. _In an attack by the KPSA._

_I've found your family, Lockon._

The plastic crinkles one last time as he lays his roses in the dirt beneath the grave.

"Are you here?" he asks. His voice is barely audible above the rain. "Or are you in space?"

He lays a hand on the Dylandy cross, feels the rain-slick stone sap the warmth from his skin. No one answers him. He should have expected that.

"Is this what you would've wanted for me? Am I following your wishes? Or..." He trails off, his voice hoarse. The English language wasn't the only thing he stopped speaking after nearly four years of fighting alone. "...Or am I going against them?"

 _Owen Dylandy, Lyndsay Dylandy, Amy Dylandy._ He commits them all to memory. That, at least, feels like something Lockon Stratos would approve of. 

Or perhaps Neil Dylandy. The names feel like they almost belong to two different people.

 _And you'd know all about_ that, _wouldn't you, Soran Ibrahim?_

He feels his fingers twitch against the cold stone, wishing for a trigger to pull against that man's voice in his head.

Lockon died to do that very thing, after all.

"...Is it alright if I keep fighting alongside you," he whispers, "Lockon Stratos?"

Something wet travels slowly down his cheek. It feels too cold to be tears. 

He pulls his hand off the cross and turns to leave it and this graveyard behind. It's time for him to go.

_"...You know, I've got a brother," Lockon had admitted, looking off into the distance. "I know I just said my whole family was killed by terrorists, but...my twin brother, he's still alive. I'm changing the world for his sake, too."_

_"Changing the world," Setsuna had echoed. "With Gundam. And with us."_

This wasn't his only mission in Ireland today. The world still hasn't changed.

_Target is Lyle Dylandy, 28 years old, Irish. Neil Dylandy's twin brother._


	2. an unearned sense of déjà vu

Setsuna can feel the weight of Ireland's late-winter rain threatening to drag his hair into his eyes. He should probably have pulled his hood up when the rain began—it's soaked through to his scalp by now, and he knows full well how long it takes for his hair to dry. 

It doesn't matter. None of that matters.

_Did you know, Lockon Stratos? Did you know that you and your brother wear your hair the same way?_

He's followed Lockon's twin for hours now, at the greatest distance he can bear. He knows full well that it hasn't been enough—even with his heavy raincoat, he stands out as a foreigner. More than a few pairs of eyes have lingered on him long enough to make his spine itch and his hand feel for the familiar weight of the gun hidden in his pocket.

Empty, of course. He ran out of bullets for it a year ago. Part of him hopes that the threat of violence will be enough of a deterrent on its own.

(The rest of him knows better.)

Still, even with an infinite supply of bullets, he wouldn't dare to fire a single one of them. Not when he's this close. Not when there's still so much he needs to see.

While Setsuna has been close enough to watch, Lockon's twin has ducked in and out of at least three separate bars. Surrounding him is a rotating cast of loud, red-faced men, all of them getting increasingly drunk. He can't make out what they're celebrating, if that's even what they're doing at all.

As he lingers near an ancient newsstand, he sees one of them stumble and begin to fall. Lockon's brother's arm shoots out to catch him by the ribs. _Fast reflexes,_ Setsuna notes with approval. _You must not get drunk very easily._

The one who fell starts shouting something, obviously cradling his sides. _Fast, but not very accurate,_ Setsuna amends. _You misjudged how much strength to put into that move. You've hurt your comrade. You'll have to—_

The other man straightens up and laughs, loudly enough for the sound to echo all the way down the street. He claps Lockon's brother on the shoulder, and they flash even wider smiles before they disappear beyond the door of another bar.

He stares after them. _What was that?_ _Why wouldn't the one who was hurt try to..._

Something frozen in his chest coils around his lungs as he _realizes._ He breathes out, slowly and silently, until the feeling passes.

_They aren't at war here. They don't have to worry about being too hurt to keep fighting._

It isn't just the drunken group. Even on a miserable day like this, these streets are crowded with people—people who have no reason to worry that they won't see any aerial strikes through the thick stormclouds, no reason to fear their rifles getting jammed by rainwater, no reason to duck and cover after every clap of thunder.

_This might be what peace looks like. This might be the kind of world that Lockon Stratos was fighting to create. One where his brother is happy._

He steps backwards, his hand brushing against the sensor for the newsstand's holographic display. In the midst of a chirpy musical chime and English text that's far too small for him to decipher, he sees the word _A-Laws._

He closes his eyes. _You didn't fight—you didn't_ die— _for such a brittle kind of peace,_ he tells Lockon. _I wonder...I hope that means you'd forgive me for this. For trying to recruit him._

He shakes his head and crosses the street in front of the bar. He needs to stop waiting for answers that aren't coming.

As soon as he opens the door, he's hit with a barrage of smell and sound and _warmth._ He can feel the stiffness in his fingers starting to thaw after only a few seconds. It seems that his target and his companions aren't the only ones celebrating...whatever it is that they're celebrating.

Though they certainly are the loudest, thumping hands on the counter and chatting freely with the bartender. Though his back is still turned, Setsuna hears Lockon say something that sounds like a joke and bark out a laugh—

_Lockon Stratos is dead._

Hazy, half-curious eyes start to turn his way, and Setsuna realizes that he's letting the warm air seep out through the doorway. He closes it behind him and watches them all turn back to their drinks and forget him.

Setsuna sits at a table where he can see both his target and the exit. Someone comes by, after a few minutes, and asks him what he wants to drink. He spends a fleeting moment wondering if they're going to believe him if he lies and says he's old enough for alcohol.

The lie won't leave his throat, because—because it wouldn't be a lie anymore, would it? He's nineteen years old, now. He can drink whatever he wants. He won't have to rely on someone else making his order for him.

_Lockon Stratos is dead._

"...A glass of milk."

The waiter gives him an odd look. He places a few crumpled bills on the table, and they get him his milk and leave him alone.

The glass is cold in his hands. He doesn't know why he ordered this. He can't bring himself to even pretend to drink it. He busies himself, instead, with watching Lockon's twin.

"Oh, _please,_ " he's saying to his friend, "even if I knew how, I wouldn't be caught dead wearing _that_ shit."

His friend seems to blush, though his face is red enough already that it's difficult to be sure. "It's—it's _professional!_ He wears it for, uh, for _military._ He's _military_ now, it's his official uniform. You don't wanna be all officially prettied up?"

His other friend elbows the red-faced one in the side and fails to whisper. "Don't give him any ideas. He's too pretty for us already—he'll leave us behind!"

He watches Lockon's brother nearly choke on his drink with the force of his laughter, echoed by his friends around the counter. Setsuna's fingers tighten around his glass. 

_He doesn't laugh like you did. He doesn't smile like you did. He isn't like you, Lockon._

His friend stumbles to his feet, begging to go to one more bar even as he actively struggles to walk.

_And why would he be? He isn't you. He's still alive._

"Whoops—"

He feels someone slam into his shoulder, hard enough to make him spill milk all over the table. He stares at it, knocked out of his thoughts enough to look up and see—

Lockon's face.

"Sorry about that, he's drunk. And an idiot," his target adds under his breath. He looks around helplessly for something to clean up Setsuna's table. "God, that just spilled everywhere—"

"It's no problem," Setsuna interrupts. He can't look at him.

His target finally notices what's left in Setsuna's glass. "Hey, what's...are you drinking _milk?_ Let me at least get you a real drink to make up for this," he offers with a smile. "C'mon, this one's on me."

Setsuna's gaze snaps up to his eyes.

_"...It's milk."_

_"This one's on me."_

_I've heard those words before._

"...Have we..." Lockon's voice says, almost to himself. "Have we met somewhere?"

_No. I've never known you._

_Yes. You died because I wasn't fast enough._

_I don't know. You aren't Lockon Stratos. You can't be Lockon Stratos. You're—_

" _Lyyyle,_ " someone whines from the doorway. "What's the holdup? Let's go!"

Lyle looks at him, obviously torn.

"Go," Setsuna forces himself to say. "It's fine. I don't drink alcohol."

Lyle scratches his chin, deep in thought. Setsuna finds himself staring at his hand, drawn to something he can't quite place. "Are you sure we haven't...?"

 _There._ Setsuna _knows_ it. He needs to find out what it means _right now,_ he needs to ask—

He bites down on the words before they can escape. He can't. Not here. Not with so many eyes on him.

"No," he mutters, hunching his shoulders. "You don't know me. Just go."

Lyle shoots him one last puzzled glance, but he finally turns to follow his friends. "If you say so," he calls over his shoulder. "See you around."

Setsuna watches him go. It feels like he doesn't truly breathe again until Lyle and his comrades have all walked out the door.

He waits as long as he dares before he hurries after them. His glass and spilled milk are left behind, forgotten.

Setsuna needs to keep following him. He needs to get his hands on some binoculars. He needs to know where it is in this place that people learn to fire their guns.

Because in this little town, so very far away from the war that killed his brother, Lyle Dylandy's hands have the calluses of a marksman.

Setsuna needs to see him _shoot._

—

"Hey. Think that kid just took off."

"...Kid? What kid?"

"The, uh...the weird milk kid. You spilled his milk."

"Oi! That was _you,_ asshole. Don't go blaming this on me!"

"...'m not an asshole, _you're_ an asshole. Asshole that scared him right back to wherever he comes from..."

"...What?"

"Huh? You didn't notice? Milk Kid's a foreigner, nooo question."

"Yeah, he's right...oh shit, Lyle, you scared him so bad he _went home?!_ "

"Hey—"

"He'll never show his face in this town again!"

"Or this _country!_ "

"Hey, c'mon, I couldn't have been _that_ bad—"

"Oooh, big bad Lyle scared Milk Kid so bad—so bad he _nnnever_ came back to Ireland! That's like—that's like an urban legend in the _making._ "

His friends keep saying things like that for the rest of the night, despite his frequent protests. They're still talking about it even as he's wrestling them into their homes; he has the uneasy feeling that they might not actually forget about this in the morning.

 _You better come back someday, Milk Kid,_ Lyle Dylandy thinks irritably to himself. _Or I'll never hear the end of it._


	3. the illusion of distance

The truth is looking him directly in the eyes. He knows this. Though he will never be an engineer, he learned enough to maintain and repair a Gundam on his own; compared to that, figuring out a pair of digital binoculars was effortless. The lenses aren't damaged, the high-zoom cameras are calibrated properly, and the display is accurate enough. He even took the device apart as much as he dared without any actual tools, and though it's cheap, it's obviously not defective.

That leaves Setsuna, then, as the defective one. There's no reason otherwise for him to feel like it's _wrong_ when he sees that Lyle Dylandy's first choice of weapon isn't a sniper rifle, but an automatic shotgun.

He can't doubt that Lyle is skilled with the gun—and how fitting a choice it is for Lyle's reflexes, _fast, but not very accurate_ —but he has watched the man blast targets away for hours now, and there is still a feeling in him that claws at his gut and whispers _I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand._

What is there not to understand? He should have expected that Lyle wouldn't copy his brother, for all that they're physically identical. He should be _satisfied,_ even, that if there is still a Gundam for him to pilot, Lyle's skills with rapid-fire shooting might translate into an entirely new fighting style. Near the end, Dynames's preference for sniping became too predictable, and their enemies learned how to counter it. Setsuna should fully _understand_ that, for all their sakes, it may be better if Lyle never uses a sniper rifle at all.

He flinches as the feeling redoubles, ripping the binoculars from his face. He can barely breathe. His stomach feels like it's _burning_. 

_I don't understand, I don't understand_ —but what does that _mean?_ Why can't he understand this? This kind of war strategy is basic, it's easy, he knows it as well as he knows how to walk: a predictable enemy is a dead one. Dynames became predictable, and Setsuna was _too slow,_ and so Lockon was dead. He understands that. He _does._ It's just—

He promised to keep fighting alongside Lockon Stratos. 

_And Lockon Stratos is a name for a sniper. Isn't it?_

Setsuna peers down and down over the cliffside that's hidden him from view. Without the cameras enhancing his vision, the man below him is just a vague figure with long, brown hair and a gun in his hands.

_From here, he looks just like him, you know._

Someone else comes by to hand the figure a case, exchanged carefully for the figure's shotgun. By the time the other person has left, the figure has started assembling it onto a thin, sturdy tripod.

_See? A sniper rifle after all. You got what you wanted._

The figure presses his eye against the scope.

 _It'll be just like he never died. It'll be just like you never_ let _him die._

He chooses a target and fires.

_I wonder. Will that really be enough to drive away your nightmares, little Soran?_

Soran can't—

His hands grip his binoculars with enough force to crack their cheap plastic shell. 

"That isn't my name," he tells himself— _reminds_ himself. "My name is Setsuna F. Seiei."

In the silence, he can still hear the mocking laughter of Ali al-Saachez.

"I am Gundam. I am _Gundam._ I'm _not—!_ "

_Hey. Don't beat yourself up. You're just doing the enemy's job for them._

He traps his voice behind his teeth.

 _You're alright,_ that voice reassures him. _He wasn't really there._

"...Neither are you," he murmurs back. "You are dead, Lockon Stratos."

 _And you're alive, Setsuna F. Seiei,_ Lockon says. _Now that we've gotten that out of the way...what are you doing here?_

Setsuna frowns. "I have a mission."

Lockon hums. _Well, that's a good start,_ he decides. _It's...my brother down there, right? Could you tell me about him?_

With mechanical precision, Setsuna pulls the binoculars back in front of his eyes. A hairline crack has stabbed through the right lens, leaving a mess of dead pixels in its wake.

Beneath him, Lyle Dylandy comes back into focus.

"Lyle Dylandy..." Setsuna trails off, uncertain of how to begin. "He is your brother. You knew him better."

 _You've seen him a lot more recently than I have,_ Lockon points out. _For all I know, he ran off and joined the circus._

"He isn't in a circus." 

He can almost hear Lockon raising his eyebrows at him.

"However...I did see him go into four different bars," Setsuna admits.

Lockon coughs. _Four bars? In one night?_

"In a row," he corrects.

Lockon's startled into a snort that melts into laughter. Setsuna closes his eyes to make sure he remembers every part of that sound.

 _Well, at least he's having fun,_ Lockon says, after he's recovered. _Four bars in a row...geez, even he must've barely been able to walk after all that._

Setsuna hesitates as he goes over his memories of that night. "His friends were," he begins, slowly. "They leaned on him for support. They stumbled into me."

_But not him?_

He remembers Lyle's eyes as they stared at one another, as Lyle asked him if they'd met somewhere before. Piercing blue, _familiar_ blue, staring at him clearly enough that Setsuna could almost see himself mirrored in them, distorted beyond recognition.

...Staring at him _clearly._ His eyes weren't fogged by alcohol.

"No," Setsuna tells him. "Lyle never let himself get drunk."

 _Never 'let himself,' huh...?_ Lockon pauses thoughtfully. _You think he's hiding something from them?_

His eyes open and find Lyle, alone behind the trigger of his gun. 

"That night, Lyle had a lot of people around him. Comrades. They laughed a lot together," Setsuna says. "None of them are here with him now."

 _And I'm guessing you never heard him tell them he'd be here today,_ Lockon adds. _Still, that's not much to go off of. Did he ever mention he could shoot? Did they talk about anything like that?_

"The military," Setsuna recalls suddenly. "I heard him discuss the military with them. Someone close to them recently enlisted. In response..."

 _I'll bet he said something about the fashion,_ Lockon says, his smirk obvious in his voice. _Something like..._

"...'Even if I knew how,'" Setsuna quotes, "'I would not be caught dead wearing that.'"

 _Yep,_ Lockon agrees. _That certainly sounds like my brother._

Setsuna does not recall the conversation before that point—he knows that Lyle's sentence is incomplete, and he can't be certain of the exact words that led him to say that.

And yet he's _sure,_ with every bone in his body, with every bolt in Exia's armor, that Lyle had meant to convey that he wouldn't join the military _even if he knew how to fight._

"He lied to them."

Lockon laughs without much humor. _Hah. Runs in the family._

The silence between them is filled with the occasional echoes of distant sniper fire.

 _How's his shooting?_ Lockon eventually asks. _You've been watching him for a while, right?_

"He started with a shotgun," Setsuna reports. "An automatic. He seemed comfortable with it."

 _A gun like that could do some serious damage pretty quickly, if you had enough bullets for it,_ Lockon notes. _But it's not exactly the most accurate thing in the world. And he switched from that to a scope? How's that going?_

Setsuna lets out a silent, heavy breath. "...Your twin is a skilled sniper," he manages to say. "He's just like you, Lockon."

Lockon goes quiet.

_...You sure about that?_

Setsuna blinks, confused.

 _Look closely,_ Lockon urges. _Look at his face._

Setsuna does so, squinting to see better through the visual distortion. Lyle has pulled back from the scope enough that Setsuna can clearly see his expression as he stares at his rifle.

"Why does he look..." Setsuna searches for the right word. "Annoyed?"

 _Close,_ Lockon says. _Not annoyed..._

Setsuna sees Lyle sigh at his gun before aiming a careful glance behind him. After a moment, he looks back at his scope—

And snaps it off the rifle.

The shots that follow are more than twice as fast, and only a little less accurate.

 _...Impatient,_ Lockon concludes, satisfied.

Setsuna's brows furrow. "Firing a sniper rifle...without targeting?"

 _It makes sense._ He can hear a smile again in Lockon's voice. _To a guy who prefers automatic shotguns, traditional sniping must be agonizingly slow. He's trying to bridge the gap._

"You..." Setsuna watches Lyle shoot for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "You never needed to do that."

 _You're right,_ Lockon agrees. _I was more accurate, more patient, and I always used my scope._

The cracks in the camera lens scatter white dots across the display. In Setsuna's right eye, the rocky earth that Lyle kneels in becomes a meteor beneath a field of stars.

 _And, well..._ Lockon chuckles. _Look where that got me._

Setsuna shuts his eyes for a long, long moment.

"It got you killed," he whispers, "Lockon Stratos."

By the time he opens his eyes again, he knows Lockon is gone.

Down on the firing range, Lyle has stopped shooting—Setsuna sees the same man who took away his shotgun has returned to shout and gesture angrily at Lyle's scopeless rifle. Lyle is trying to reattach the scope with no success, though the grin on his face makes for an odd-looking apology.

When Setsuna sees the range behind him, he understands why Lyle is smiling: he's shot down every single one of his targets.

 _It's different from how Lockon fought,_ he decides. _But...it isn't wrong._

Setsuna nods and pushes himself to his feet.

"You are not your brother," he tells Lyle. "As long as you live, you never will be."

He stashes his broken binoculars in a crack between two boulders before turning to leave. He's learned enough, and he can't afford to keep a Gundam hidden here any longer. By tomorrow morning, he and Exia will be halfway around the world.

He spares one last glance down at the firing range.

"You are your own person, Lyle Dylandy. And someday, I will see that person again."

The promise settles into the weight of a warm, gloved hand on Setsuna's shoulder.


	4. i could almost believe that you missed me

Behind his back, Lyle hears the sound of footsteps.

 _That didn't take long,_ he notes to himself. _Damn. Shouldn't have wasted the cigarette._

"Are you the one who called me here?" he asks without turning.

"You're Lyle Dylandy, a member of Katharon."

 _That_ gets Lyle's attention. His mind rapidly reorients around what has immediately become a much riskier conversation— _are you from Security, am I under arrest, am I being detained_ —he whirls around and—

"The _Milk Kid?_ "

The young man stares at him.

"I mean—at Guy's pub, didn't you order—" To his undying horror, Lyle can actually feel himself _blushing._ He averts his eyes and tries to get himself back under control. "Haven't we met before?"

When Lyle manages to glance back up, he finds something in the young man's face has softened into something that—something that looks almost like _gratitude._

"...You remembered," Milk Kid says quietly.

 _Well, shit,_ Lyle thinks in a daze, _now you definitely can't tell him that you only remember him because he's been the butt of an inside joke for a year and a half._

"Uh, yeah," Lyle says instead. "Of course. My memory's not _that_ bad."

Milk Kid nods, apparently satisfied with that. "My name is Setsuna F. Seiei. I'm a Gundam Meister from Celestial Being."

Lyle's brain conjures up the fleeting, vivid image of a giant mech trying to cram itself into a pub long enough for its pilot to order a glass of milk. His voice comes out as a strangled croak. "You're from...Celestial Being?"

"You're meant to be a Gundam Meister as well," Setsuna-Milk-Kid-Seiei continues. "I'm here to recruit you, Lyle Dylandy."

He pauses, searching for something in Lyle's bewildered expression. 

"Or rather...Lockon Stratos."

—

Months later, it will strike Lyle Dylandy that part of the reason he joined Celestial Being was entirely because of that codename.

For all the grief that the title of _Lockon Stratos_ would drag into his life...

Well. At least it was better than _Milk Kid._


	5. acting out, fitting in

Lyle's still getting used to the artificial gravity on the ship; when he turns the corner and sees Setsuna waiting for him, he nearly floats right into him.

Setsuna doesn't even flinch. "Lockon Stratos."

"Setsuna F. Seiei," Lyle says back, raising an eyebrow. "Does everyone use their full first and last names on this ship, or is it just you and my charming instructor?"

"Tieria Erde," Setsuna corrects, frowning at him. "You keep antagonizing him."

Lyle rolls his eyes. _Now I wish I had slammed into you._ "He's the one who keeps chewing my head off every time I so much as breathe in the wrong direction."

"Tieria doesn't like being teased."

"Oh, I'm well aware of _that,_ " Lyle mutters, trying to move past Setsuna. His quarters are waiting for him, and he's already sick of this conversation. "The least he could do is look me in the eyes if he's going to hate me for existing."

Setsuna refuses to move, staring Lyle in the eyes. "He doesn't hate you for existing."

Lyle valiantly holds in a sneer and the word _bullshit._ "Sure."

"He..." Setsuna trails off; Lyle can almost see the gears turning behind his eyes as he tries to come up with a way to placate him. "Tieria was not prepared to see you here."

Lyle scoffs. "Not my fault that my big brother never thought to mention me before he died."

Setsuna goes silent.

"...Except to you, apparently," Lyle begrudgingly amends. "But you could've at least told your own crewmates who I was before I, y'know, _got here._ "

"You are angry," Setsuna says, his shoulders obviously tightening.

"No, I'm not—" Lyle wipes a hand down his face. "God. It's fine, Setsuna. It's too late to do anything about it _now,_ obviously. No use crying over spilled milk."

Setsuna lets out a strange noise—Lyle can only describe it as something that isn't quite a huff. "Yes," he agrees. "I know that very well."

It takes Lyle a second, but he snorts. _Of course you remember that part, too._ "Yeah, I guess you would."

"You are a part of Celestial Being, Lockon Stratos," Setsuna tells him. "We're all fighting the same enemies of peace. As long as you understand that, Tieria Erde will gladly fight by your side."

"...Well, at least one of us is confident," Lyle mutters.

Setsuna nods firmly. "I am."

Lyle shakes his head and continues floating by as soon as Setsuna steps aside.

 _Everyone on this ship is crazy,_ he thinks firmly. _Out of their goddamn minds._

It makes Lyle wonder, then, why half a smile is lingering on his face.

—

_Tieria Erde is not nearly as all-seeing as he thinks he is,_ Lyle thinks smugly as he carefully arranges himself next to the doorway.

"...appreciate his assistance in rescuing Allelujah," Tieria is saying, muffled by the metal walls. "But I don't understand. Why was that man your choice?"

"Lockon Stratos is a Gundam Meister," is all Setsuna says.

"Lockon _was_ a Gundam Meister," Tieria hisses, his voice sounding raw. "That man is not Lockon. He said precisely those words to Allelujah the very first moment they saw one another."

_Actually, I pretty distinctly remember saying that I was sick of people looking at me like I'm a zombie, but yeah, sure. Whatever you say._

There's a pause. "He is Lockon Stratos. He is not Neil Dylandy."

_Congrats. Gold star for you._

"I'm aware of that. I have read Lyle Dylandy's file," Tieria grits out. "Allelujah, however, had _not._ And after spending nearly five years alone in an _enemy prison..._ "

 _Five years in that place...?_ Lyle grimaces. _Okay, Jesus, note to self: don't mess with Allelujah so much._

When Lyle listens back in, Tieria is in the middle of another sentence. "...ust want to know _why._ "

Lyle can't hear anything for a long, tense moment. Then—

"He is not Neil Dylandy," Setsuna repeats. "But Lyle is his twin."

Tieria makes a noise of outrage. "You chose him just because they're _genetically identical?_ "

Setsuna's response is too quiet for him to hear. Lyle presses his ear against the wall.

"...not because I believe that he's identical to his brother," Setsuna murmurs. "Lyle Dylandy is Lockon Stratos because I believe that they are equals."

Lyle jerks back around a corner just in time to avoid being seen by Tieria as he briskly exits the room. When the sounds of his footsteps have faded, Lyle carefully lets himself slide to the floor.

He doesn't think he can remember the last time someone thought that he and his older brother were _equals._

"Lockon Stratos."

Lyle startles, his hand dragged halfway through his hair. He tries at sounding nonchalant and decidedly doesn't make it. "...Setsuna F. Seiei."

"You were listening," Setsuna notes, looking down at him. A fact, not an accusation.

"Did you..." Lyle clears his throat. "Did you mean what you said in there?"

Setsuna's eyebrows furrow, faintly confused. "Of course."

"Right," Lyle mutters. "I suppose sarcasm isn't really your area of expertise, is it."

"No," Setsuna agrees. He gives Lyle a stern look. "Don't eavesdrop on our conversations. It makes you seem untrustworthy."

Lyle winces. "Right. Sorry about that."

Setsuna studies him for an uncomfortably long time.

"Don't worry," he says eventually. "There's no use crying over a broken sniper scope."

Lyle manages to hold onto his confusion for nearly six seconds.

"You—" He leaps to his feet. "Son of a _bitch,_ you _saw_ that?!"

"I can understand why you did it," Setsuna notes dryly. "You were a much more confident marksman without the scope attached."

Lyle buries his burning-red face in his hands with a groan. "Yeah, and it got me banned from that range for the rest of my goddamn life."

When Lyle dares to peek through his fingers, he sees that Setsuna's lips are twitching as he lets out more of those quiet huffs—and now that he's heard it more than once, Lyle has a sneaking suspicion of what that sound might actually be.

"Setsuna F. Seiei," Lyle demands incredulously, "are you _laughing_ at me?"

"Lockon Stratos," Setsuna proclaims, "anyone can laugh, if they have something to laugh about."

Lyle can't argue with that, even when his barks of laughter are loud enough that he's sure he hears Tieria's footsteps coming back their way.

 _What do you know,_ Lyle realizes. _I think I'm just as crazy as they are._


	6. epilogue: guardians of eden

As he passes through the hangar, Setsuna finds himself stopping before the body of a dark green Gundam. Ian Vashti notices his hesitation. 

"That's Cherudim," Ian tells him. "Dynames's successor. There wasn't enough to rebuild the original after..."

Setsuna nods. Ian doesn't need to say more than that. "What's it like?"

"Like a more efficient Dynames, mostly," Ian says, gesturing at various parts of Cherudim. "GN Missile Pods, beam pistols—though the barrels on those pistols have anti-beam coating now, so they can block enemy sabers."

"A good idea."

Ian's smile is fleeting. "It was Lockon's, actually."

Setsuna acknowledges that with the silence it deserves.

"...Anyway," Ian goes on, clearing the roughness from his throat. "Cherudim's also equipped with GN Shield Bits—a bit like those Fangs from the Thrones, but focused on defense. That's probably the biggest upgrade, aside from the sniper rifle, of course."

"The sniper rifle?" he echoes.

"In addition to the usual, it can fold in half for something I've been calling Vulcan Mode," Ian explains. "Three barrels for rapid, short-to-medium-range fire. The barrel in the middle can even fire standard GN Rifle shots. Not nearly as accurate, but it's fast. Honestly, I wasn't sure if it'd be a great idea, since he wouldn't have—"

"No," Setsuna interrupts. "This is the weapon that Cherudim needs to have."

Ian raises an eyebrow, but doesn't question him. "...Alright. The standard sniper mode is basically the same, aside from general improvements on efficiency and accuracy."

Setsuna is quiet for a moment.

"Can it fire without targeting?"

"What?" Ian asks. "I mean...it might take a while to calibrate the rifle for that, but sure, I guess I can get the Haros started on it. But what the hell would you want that for? That isn't..."

Ian trails off, but Setsuna can finish that sentence well enough on his own.

_That isn't something that its previous pilot would have used._

Setsuna nods again. Ian hesitates, but ultimately waves over a Haro to relay his request; the Haro chirps their acceptance and leaves to find their comrades and get to work.

 _This is not your Gundam, Neil Dylandy,_ Setsuna thinks, as Ian leads him past Cherudim and towards his brand-new 00. _This will never be your Gundam._

Through a small, fortified window, he catches a glimpse of the Earth, and all the people that live and die upon its surface.

_But this is a Gundam worthy of the name Lockon Stratos._

_And so are you, Lyle Dylandy._

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: https://neildylandy.tumblr.com/


End file.
